The Kings’ 1-0 victory over San Jose on Monday was only a brief respite. Their woes continued last night with a 3-0 defeat at the hands of the Phoenix Coyotes.

After playing in an exhausting six contests in just nine days, the slumping Kings will return to Los Angeles. Unfortunately they won’t find much in the way of relief there.

They will get some desperately needed off days, but they also have a tough schedule ahead of them with matches against Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Columbus. After that, the Olympic break will start, but they can’t afford to let their current plunge to extend that far.

“This home stand’s huge for us,” Kings captain Dustin Brown told LA Kings Insider. “You look at the standings, the Pacific Division, these next four games could be the biggest four games of the year.”

After going 1-5-1, the Kings have a narrow lead on third place in the Pacific Division. They have a six-point cushion in the battle for a postseason spot, but have participated in two more games than the top non-playoff team, the Coyotes.

Lately the Kings’ biggest problem has been their ability to score. They have managed to net just two goals in their last four contests. Overall, they’re in the bottom five in the league with 2.31 goals per game.

Still, Brown is confident that the Kings will be able to weather this storm together.

“It’s great when you’re scoring five goals a game, and everything’s easy and you’re winning games,” Brown said. “It’s times like these where we’re struggling to win games and we’re struggling to score goals that it’s important for us to believe in what we have here.”

The New Jersey Devils have been incredibly difficult to beat at home. Lately, the St. Louis Blues have been on a roll just about anywhere.

On Friday night, the Blues were the hotter team, handing the Devils their first home loss in regulation in 2016-17. And it wasn’t particularly close, with St. Louis winning 4-1.

It’s a convenient time to note that the Blues rank among the hottest teams in the NHL. Most recently, they’re 5-1-1 in their last seven games, but they’ve been especially impressive since they flirted with .500 at 7-6-3. Beginning with a 4-1 win against the Buffalo Sabres on Nov. 15, the Blues are on a 8-2-1 tear.

That’s impressive stuff.

This 4-1 win was quite the showcase for Robby Fabbri and Vladimir Tarasenko, in particular. Tarasenko collected three assists while Fabbri scored two goals on Friday night. His second goal was particularly slick:

The Blues are right in saying that this was a pretty fitting opportunity to drop a “Holy Jumpin.”

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.